The SpiritSpirit WeekWeek of TodayHow COVID-19 has impacted a yearly tradition

Red Riding Hood walking down a trail while a wolf awaits her. Painted by Poorvi Thairani (9).

Mengting ChangStaff Writer As the pervasive COV-ID-19 spreads its way to ev-ery nook and cranny of our lives, it has also consumed the largely celebrated tradi-tion of Spirit Week—Or has it? Though the initial time restraint set some difficul-ties for high quality perfor-mances, an extension was graciously given and Spirit Week was postponed un-til 11/16-11/20. There are sprinkles of miracles at work as our storybook themes work their magic to bring us a truly memorable year. The Topsy Turvy of Alice, The Infamy of Shrek, Riding Hood’s sinister lat-tice And the Peter Pan projectAs COVID-19 makes its mark, this dire new situation gives rise to this new group of unlikely participants: gamers, digital artists, and musicians. As Andrew Lee, a back-ground musician for the Senior Spirit Week puts it, “[This year’s spirit week] gives more opportunity for new ideas compared to other spirit weeks because usually we always want to do the usual stuff, but then this year, with the pandemic going on, we have more op-portunities to include other stuff like animation and original background music.” Sophomore skit anima-tor, Aarush Agte (10) com-ments, “It’s nice to be able to contribute to this in a way that suits my skill set. I’m not really into the dancing or scriptwriting, but this is something I like doing.” However, the skits are not the only part of Spirit Week that has received a complete makeover. In an act of inge-

nuity, class leaders and the ASB executive team decided on having a Minecraft set. Not only has this never been heard of, it invites many long-time Minecraft veter-ans to become involved in Spirit Week. One Minecrafter in par-ticular, James Liu (11) re-sponded, “Usually, video games don’t really coincide with school activities and so I was kind of surprised when I found out that we were do-ing the set over Minecraft.” Unfortunately, though we have newfound skill-diver-sity in Spirit Week partici-pants, there are still many challenges members face due to online interactions. Vidhi Chellani (10), the Bollywood Choreographer for the Sophomore Spirit Week states, “We teach on zoom, obviously not in per-son to be safe, and zoom is-sues like lagging, and sync-ing on the music… is one of the biggest obstacles that we’ve faced”. Alana Weinstein (9), Uni-ty Choreographer for the Freshmen spirit week adds, “When you teach a dance and you don’t really get to feel the energy from every-body else, it’s a lot less in-teresting and I think people don’t really get the same in-tent behind it that I’m trying to get across. And it’s also a little bit more difficult to see if people have the dance [down] or not because I see them on a much smaller screen and I can’t hear them if they want to do it again”. In response to these re-cent challenges, Spirit Week leaders have found ways to overcome these hurdles through their own creativity. Alana Weinstein continues, “What I do is I usually ask

a yes or no question and I do either a thumbs up or a thumbs down cause I found that a couple of other chore-ographers do the same thing and that usually works pret-ty well as long as I can see their hand.” Unfortunately, network latency is not the only chal-lenge for spirit week par-ticipants. As the emerging deadline creeps closer and closer, stress and frustration has overtaken the minds of many. “We had a hard dead-line, and all of set worked really hard just to meet that deadline. We had a lot of stuff to do and we sacrificed a lot of sleep, especially for me, some of the quality of my homework just to meet that deadline so we could push out set,” laments junior James Liu (11). Andrew Lee (12) adds, “... With the time crunch that we’re given it’s really det-rimental to get used to the new situation and try to cre-ate a good spirit week espe-cially considering that we’re seniors”. Luckily, for many hard-working participants, their grievances were heard and answered. In an Elect meet-ing, it was discussed and de-cided that Spirit Week would be postponed until the week of 11/16-11/20. When the news was re-ceived, Jennifer Kim (11), and Amber Schomoyer (12), gave emphatic, but under-standable reactions. “I’m not kidding, when I got the message, I liter-ally teared up,” Kim says, “For me, it was good news. Trying to meet the original deadline was really stress-

The Battle for AHS Sports’s Life

Cohorts and the future of AHS sports

Sports, to some student-athletes, is where their strong determinations have been built from. To some others, sports have given them the fond memories and strong camaraderies that they’ve built over the time they’ve been on the team. Other student-athletes are just big fans of the sport they do. Some student-athletes even depend on their sport to provide for their future. In the spring of the 2020 school year, COVID-19 con-cluded the spring sports sea-son leaving many athletes devastated. In October of the 2020-2021 school year, AHS released news from the FUSD district introduc-ing the first-ever pre-season conditioning program be-ing held by the school for season-one sports starting October 19. The school’s plan is to condition in co-horts of eleven people at a time per three weeks up un-til the sports season begins.

Alvin John GonzalesStaff Writer

Season-one sports that are to start their conditioning on October 19 are football, water polo, volleyball, and cheer, except for cross coun-try. “Overall I think [the co-hort conditioning is] a pretty effective strategy, but I think there are some drawbacks to that because you can't work on your relay handoffs be-cause you need to touch a [track] baton and get in close contact with someone else, which is a pretty big issue if you’re doing [track] relays,” says dedicated track athlete, Raymond Tsui (11). Some events in track and field, a season-two sport, like the relay races require the pass-ing of a baton, which makes the spread of germs inevi-table. “I personally think we should condition more, but just self-conditioning,” Tsui added. Although he does not feel entirely comfortable about this new cohort condition-

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OCTOBER 2020 AMERICAN HIGH SCHOOL 36300 FREMONT BLVD FREMONT, CA 94536 VOL. 48 ISSUE #1

Students’ Campaign for Students’ Campaign for Worldwide ChangeWorldwide Change

AHS students are making an impact around the world

Abigail ManaleseStaff Writer

Young Afghan girls being taught outside near half-constructed buildings in the village of Mamakey. “They don’t have classrooms like we do, in schools. They barely have rooms.

They’re outside near bricks studying, it’s very unfortunate” Palwasha Alokozai (11).

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Guide to Gaming: Quarantine EditionQuarantine Edition

How gaming has helped students cope with the coronavirus.

Darcy ChewStaff Writer It has been seven months since the beginning of quar-antine; a long journey of boredom and anxiety. A con-stant period of not know-ing what to do or what will happen. Since quarantine, there has been an increase in online gaming. Staying cooped inside with the pan-demic and the California fires, students cope with the coronavirus through a vari-ety of games spanning the months-long quarantine. March/April 2020 Schools across the coun-try began closing, the begin-ning of a months-long quar-antine. Students were met with an increased amount of free time and boredom with the absence of school. Many turned to a rising new game: Animal Crossing New Hori-zons. “In the newest game, you have your own island and you try to just make your is-land look as nice as possible. And you catch bugs and fish and things like that,” Kate Rafael (10) explains. Ra-fael shares that she has been playing Animal Crossing for a while. “[My sister and I] played on the Wii,” she con-tinues. However, lately she tends to play more with her friends. “It gives me a chance to bond with my friends a lot,” Rafael says, explaining the benefits of playing Ani-mal Crossing. During the pandemic, a sense of routine and produc-tivity was lost. However, an-other Animal Crossing play-er, Wenchi Lai (12), shares why she likes the game, say-ing “I could invest my time into building a house or building, [an] achievement in some way.” Unlike Ra-fael, Lai does not play much with friends, but she finds a creative outlet through the game. “There's a lot of things you can't afford in real life and in Animal Crossing it's like 400 bells and I'm like ‘Okay, I'm gonna make a

mansion,’” Lai (12) shares. August/September 2020 A couple months of quar-antine passed and students are still confined indoors. They find solace in the grow-ing sensation of Among Us. “The game is a little like mafia or spyfall; there’s 1-3 imposters depending on the setting. Players could choose their settings and choose their own charac-ters. The imposters’ goal is to kill almost all the crew-mates before the crewmates finish all of their tasks, and the crewmates have to figure out who the imposters are while finishing their tasks.” Grace Zhen (11), a frequent Among Us player, describes. Despite being released in 2018, the game did not gain much attention and popu-larity until August of 2020. “It’s popular because during [quarantine] there’s not a lot of fun social interactions, so Among Us provided a way for people to relax and have a sense of normalcy.” Zhen says. Always Yet, video games have al-ways been popular among teens, not only during a pan-demic. An avid Minecraft play-er, James Liu (11) has been playing since 4th grade. “I started playing it because it was trendy and cool, every-one was playing it, and I wanted to be included. But after it was not cool, I never stopped playing because it was an escape from the real world.” Liu shares. Unlike Liu, frequent gamer Monica Sheih (11) enjoys playing a variety of video games. Most recently, Stardew Valley. “Stardew Valley is a farming game where the premise is basi-cally farming, but there’s a lot more aspects to it, such as befriending the villager NPCs or trying to repair the town community center. I actually started playing be-

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since she entered high school, making this year her fourth year in the organiza-tion. She was initially drawn to Interact as one of the larg-est clubs in our school that helped on both a local and worldwide level. “Interact is generally a club that wants to do good in the world. We want to fundraise for good causes. For exam-ple, our annual community and international projects are both projects where we raise a lot of money in the district to give back to causes that will help those around the world. The Yemen Crisis gained a lot of social media momentum and [me and vice president Apoorva San-nasi (12)] didn’t see why not to” Ashley Lee (12). To fundraise, the club used bingo boards which donors could fill out with small amounts of money rang-ing between $1-$5. The club does not stop there, how-ever, as their district project this year titled “Feeding the Future” focuses on raising money to help send sustain-able food to starving Yemeni people in their time of crisis. More information can be

found in their District Proj-ect Video. Other issues have taken a more personal toll on stu-dents. Many of our AHS friends have families back at home who are stuck in the middle of these devastat-ing crises. Polina Muradyan (12) is one such student who decided to take it upon her-self to organize a bake sale to help citizens in an ongoing crisis in her home country of Armenia. Similar to the Yemen crisis, people’s lives have been jeopardized in a civil war dating back cen-turies between the Turkey-supported Azerbaijan and Armenia-supported Repub-lic of Artsakh. Muradyan has decided to focus her ef-forts on helping the people affected. “A lot of bad stuff has been happening to the civilians. I’m not placing blame on one side at all . . . I want to put more focus on the actual civilians rather than specifi-cally Armenians. I think hu-man lives are more impor-tant than national identity” Polina Muradyan (12). Muradyan decided to donate her profits from the bake sale to the Red Cross who is working in conjunc-

tion with the Azerbaijan Red Crescent to help send aid to affected civilians. She plans on holding another bake sale near the beginning of November to aid the citizens in their plight during the on-going civil war. To the east of Armenia, Afghanistan has been suffer-ing through their own trou-bling situation especially during the COVID-19 pan-demic, since countries such as Afghanistan did not have the resources to support much of its people during the spread of the disease. Far from home, Palwasha Alo-kozai (11) has embarked on three GoFundMe campaigns over the summer to bring supplies and resources to people suffering in Afghani-stan. Her first campaign focused on Afghan corona-virus relief. After gaining so-cial media traction, the cam-paign was partnered with the Afghan Women and Children Health and Educa-tion Foundation. “We sent COVID packag-es that included food, health necessities, and a package to maintain each family for around a month” says Pal-washa Alokozai (11).

October 2020 / Eagle Era / Page 2

DemocracyDemocracy In Our Very Own AHSAHS

A commentary on the 2020 election for future voters

Senior Amy Zhang, though disappointed that she will not be able to vote until the 2022 midterm elections, happily holds a homemade sign proclaiming her support for the Democratic Nominee, Joe Biden. When

asked about the reason for her support, she replied “We cannot have 4 more years of Trump. His disregard for science, him just saying ‘It is what it is,’ him not being able to denounce white supremacy just reveals

so much and it brings it out to the forefront where everyone can see it.”

Lisa YeungStaff Writer

I watched as the two can-didates screamed at each other on TV, constantly in-terrupting each other, in-sults reverberating in my liv-ing room as I ate off-brand Cheetos on the couch. Every pixel of the TV shined bright as moderator Chris Wal-lace desperately attempted to calm the situation down and enforce speaking time limits. In the panel after the debates, the news anchors looked at each other in dis-belief, shaking their heads. “What was that?” anchor Andrea Mitchell of NBC asked, face morphing as she searched for the correct ex-pression. Her co-anchors nodded along, soon drifting into another topic. Though many people called the debates “terrible” and “unprofessional,” I do believe that they reflected America. It reflected the state of America now, where screaming protestors and counter protesters charge at each other to fight on the

street, where supporters of candidates buy gaudy po-litical merchandise to adorn their houses and cars with, where the nation is torn and can barely agree on anything at all. In such a giant nation, how could we fix this? I de-cided to see if I could find the answer locally, from those in our very own commu-nity. I am proud to present my own panel of contribu-tors: student Amy Zhang (12), student Shika Adhikari (12), and Syeda Imandar, the president of the local branch of League of Women Voters. Each person replying is representative of a differ-ent segment of voters. Amy Zhang (12) is unable to vote, but keeps up with politics heavily and is excited to eventually vote in the 2022 midterm elections. Shika Adhikari (12) is unable to vote, keeps up with politics sometimes, and is moder-ately excited to vote. Syeda Imandar is part of the ac-tivist/educational branch of voters and involved in the

democratic process (includ-ing registering voters and providing election informa-tion). Our first topic was how the pandemic was affecting the election, be it political-ly or physically. Politically, Amy Zhang mentioned that there will be a party separa-tion in voting, with “the ma-jority of Democrats/people leaning toward the left vot-ing by mail” while “Trump supporters are… voting in person.” Zhang finished off by stating that President Trump is “trying to discount mail-in voting” but that she does not believe him be-cause “in the past eight years there’s been barely any cases of fraud out of millions of mail-in ballots.” Shikha Ad-hikari pointed out the differ-ent logistics of the campaign. She stated that she felt there would be “less chances of cyber interference because most of the voting is mail-in or in-person.” Adhikari pointed out the effects that this would have on the cam-

paigns themselves and how she is scared that “the candi-dates won’t be able to express their viewpoints thoroughly or consistently because of the shortage of debates and interactions between the people.” Syeda Imandar and Adhikari both addressed the issue of possible lower turn-out from those “concerned about social distancing.” Imandar tells voters not to listen to the “various rumors about mail in ballots” and that they are a “good way to vote.” Our conversation moved to the topic of voters, espe-cially future voters. Both Zhang and Adhikari ex-pressed unhappiness with their inability to cast a ballot for their preferred candidate (Joe Biden for both). Zhang feels that this election is “so, so, so important” and that “we need leaders that will unite the country instead of separating it.” Her thoughts echoed Adhikari’s, who ex-claimed that “There’s a lot of division within our society.” and “Biden will bring unity, and we need unity in the midst of this chaos.” Both also cited the president’s be-havior in their choice of Joe Biden. Zhang cited Presi-dent Trump’s “sexual assault allegaltions” and “his disre-gard for science.” Adhikari cited her view that Presi-dent Trump “did not handle things properly at all in this term” and that, in contrast, Candidate Joe Biden, will be “able to professionally ex-press his views as president.” Syeda Imandar added that all voters should “make the time to do the research” and look at “analytical/nonpar-tisan information.” Imandar states that voters can watch “candidate forums online” and even “personally contact candidates” to learn more. Interested in getting ad-ditional perspective, I asked each contributor what issues were personally important to them. Amy Zhang stated that “systemic racism and its effects on African-Ameri-cans” is extremely important to her. She elaborates that “It’s nuts when you see how these officers treat people who are peacefully protest-ing. It’s even worse when you see its results on Afri-

can Americans, how they’ve been disproportionately targeted by police officers.” Shikha commented that she wants “peace of the country,” “unity,” and “a good educa-tional curriculum.” Syeda Inamdar stated that “vot-ing” and making “sure ev-eryone has the access to the right to vote” is important to her. Inamdar also named the specific issue of climate change, and states she feels that “Whether you believe climate change is man-made or not man-made, the issue is we need to address it, be-cause it’s going to impact all of us.” After getting a person-al perspective from each contributor, I asked what seemed like a big issue in general going into the elec-tion. Amy Zhang, Shika Ad-hikari, and Syeda Imander all cited President Trump’s handling of the pandemic. Zhang said she heard that the president was “pushing a Covid vaccine that people are really skeptical about” and that Covid-19 “isn’t be-ing treated as a public health issue, it’s like a political is-sue.” Drawing from Journal-ist Bob Woodward’s now re-leased tapes with President Trump, Zhang said “he knew about the pandemic through those video recordings back in January, he knew how dangerous it was but refused to take action until March.” Adhikari said that she does not like that “everyone is in a state of confusion” and that the president’s “unreliable messages” makes her dislike the president. She feels that instead “we need someone who can face the facts and follow proper science, espe-cially from professionals and project that onto the people.” Imander added that a major issue is how a candidate will “manage a pandemic, be-cause you may have a crisis, but the way it’s managed re-ally impacts the outcome.” Seeing all the difference in answers, I asked if politics was becoming more divisive. Amy Zhang felt that “politics in general is becoming more divided” and that “[my] mom and I have pretty dif-ferent views about certain things. It definitely leads

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October 2020 / Eagle Era / Page 3

Inside a Creative Inside a Creative Mind Mind

An inside look on Sage’s creative process and her work

Here, Sage is giving out directions for her actors to create the best shot for her films. She makes sure her actors utilize their acting skills to relay their best emotions to “create a

mood and depth to the film.” Sage makes sure her actors are prepared and put their best foot forward.

Elise KaylorStaff Writer Almost everyone can say they have a passion for some-thing, yet only a few take ac-tion towards it. Senior Sage Remo is one of these people. She has the drive to take charge and make her dreams into reality. Sage’s passion is film-making. She emphasizes, “what fuels my motivation to create films is my passion for storytelling. I’ve always dabbled in a lot of hobbies before and had a very strong inclination towards the arts. Much of that comes from self expression and personal stories I want to tell people. Film has been the one art medium that I can properly relay emotion.” This year, Sage went through her creative pro-cesses to produce, write, and plan short films. Although she “has not entirely finished screenplays,” she has pro-duced many other works, including shooting a music video for her best friend in Seattle and her short film Eulogy that came out just a couple of weeks ago. Sage re-members, “it was something I have been trying to write over the summer but finally was able to work on it when I was back in Palo Alto.” However, Sage’s process has slowed down as COV-ID-19 became more preva-lent and created obstacles for filming. Sage reveals “the pandemic has very negative-ly impacted the process and

speed of my work. In the be-ginning, I already struggled to find actors and now even more so. I have to find ac-tors that are comfortable social distancing and aren’t showing symptoms. There are many limitations I have because of COVID-19, un-fortunately.” As a teenager, it can be difficult to reach out and find people who have an in-clination to do unpaid work and have that initiative to act in something. This is an obstacle many creators come across. Fortunately for Sage, this is not an issue. She ex-presses, “I’ve always had a running list in my mind of people I know I can reach out to and would be inter-ested in acting for me.” Sage’s boyfriend, Bryan Tieu (12), sees how this pro-cess affects Sage and men-tions, “One of my favorite things about Sage as a cre-ator is that she is versatile and able to work with what she has and still create im-pressive projects. Through her constant hard work, it is clear of how much she has grown as a person in the film industry.” For collaborators, it is cru-cial for them to maintain a strong and healthy relation-ship with the people they work with in order to cre-ate the best piece possible. Sage says, “the most impor-tant part of being a director is knowing you are not just there to boss people around, but you also have to listen

to people’s insight, advice and suggestions in order to get second opinions. I try to keep everyone on the same level basis where there is no strict hierarchy of creative authority.” Finding the best people to work with is only one chal-lenge. For people with dead-lines, time management is crucial. It may be difficult to keep up with work and pro-crastination occurs. For Sage she states, “in pre produc-tion, I have to say that I get writer’s block and creators block often. However, once I set my mind to a screen-play or really tunnel my vi-sion onto something I want, I will sit down for hours just writing or editing. In techni-cal aspects, I plan shooting scenes revolving around the time of day in location.” During production, Sage has a set schedule of when to film the scenes. “I make sure I leave the emotionally charged scenes for later, be-cause I want my actors to get comfortable in front of the camera first and figure out the mannerisms of their characters before pouring so much emotion into the scene.” There have been times where she has encountered obstacles. However, Sage demonstrates how it is cru-cial to work around the or-deal, make use of what you have, and to never give up. “When I went to the New York Film Academy, we had the opportunity to

shoot a film. However, with the amount of campers that attended, [scheduling was very tight and I did not get enough time to do mine as I envisioned]. “In the end, I was unhappy with the shots I’d gotten. I really had my mind set on this sort of one pathway to complete this film,” Sage explains. Rather than dwell on the negative, “I stopped focusing so much on what the vision in my head was and started to look at it from a different per-spective. After that, I really enjoyed the outcome of the

film and became a lot more comfortable with failure and knowing that my first draft may not be the best. I think it is really important to have an open mind about what I am doing,” she reveals. For Sage, her work is far from over. “I can’t see myself doing anything other than film. Whether I end up be-ing a director like I aspire to be or if I’m in the makeup department or if I become a screenwriter, I just have my mind set on becoming a filmmaker and majoring in film when I go to college.”

ing, as an athlete, Raymond Tsui still stays committed to the idea of continuing to train during these times of isolation. Sports at AHS like Cross Country have already planned to do self-condi-tioning rather than meeting in cohorts at American High School to do offseason train-ing and Thien Tran is one of those cross country runners at AHS. “[The cross country team is] actually in a Google Classroom right now and [Coach Ramirez] just gives us [workouts]… saying that we should… try to run three miles every [weekday],” cross country runner, Thien Tran (11), explained. “Will [the cross country races] still be how we did last year or will it just be like a small group, and then… a small group of five goes, and then two min-utes after [the next group of runners start],” Thien Tran (11) theorizes about how her cross country season might look like. Cross country isn’t the only season-one sport ex-pected to do conditioning in October 2020, however, football is another one of those sports and Darrius Paran-Ybona is part of the team. “I usually [train] at school and in the weight room and

“The Battle for AHS Sports’s Life” cont.on the field and whatnot for football. But for at home was usually my resting time… 80% of the time it’s always at school, or after school,” the young football player, Darrius Paran-Ybona (11) remarked. Paran-Ybona is a football player at American and intends on joining the cohort conditionings this year to help himself get on the team again this year. However, for some stu-dent-athletes, American High School may be the only place that they can properly train for their sport. “I don't have all the mate-rial that I need… I don't have the footballs, I don't have the helmets, the pads, and all the weight lifting stuff, all them dumbbells and stuff in the weight room,” Darrius Paran-Ybona (11) addresses. Some athletes training on their own may also find it hard to work on the team communication aspect of some sports. “I feel like if we get into the season, we're probably going to be lacking a lot and make more mistakes than we had last season because last season we really had a lot of practices and it was more intense,” football player, Jake Navarro (12), says honestly. Jake Navarro (12) brings

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October 2020 / Eagle Era / Page 4

The Effects of Dressing Up at Home Students at American explain how wearing different styles

of clothing affects their mood and productivity at home

Shreya Patil tends to stick to her pajamas or sweatshirts during school days in quarantine as it feels comfy and homely.

Neha Zope Staff Writer

In the times of quarantine and social distance learning in high school, one would expect everyone to stay in their pajamas all day and re-lax. However, that may not be the case all the time. For some, dressing up at home seems to be a thing that not only makes them feel pro-ductive, but allows them to feel more confident. Typically, a lot of high school students tend to at-tend online classes in sweat-shirts and sweatpants or pajamas. For senior Shreya Patil, wearing comfy clothes is a must. As a senior, she wants to relax with all the work she has, so she wants to feel as cozy as she can. “It’s so much more com-fortable and I just have clothes lying around every-where so I do not have to go and choose what to wear” she explains. “When I dress up for regular school, it takes me so long to pick an outfit, but at home, I just go to my night dress pile and wear that.”

In addition to the comfi-ness Shreya feels in her out-fits, she also describes that “I feel more productive actu-ally in these clothes because I feel more comfortable so I’m in my zone when I work. I feel homely.” However, unlike Shreya, others find that dressing up with a bit more effort is what tends to make them more productive. Simran Sakha-walker, a freshman, discuss-es how her getting ready in the morning depends on her mood. “My mood depends main-ly in terms of productivity. If I wake up and I feel I want to get stuff done today, then I will dress up and it starts the whole day” she states. Similarly, another senior at American, Ananya Kartha, expands on the idea of pro-ductivity and getting ready. “I feel in school, it’s different because there are a lot more distractions in school with friends and stuff, so it is easy to not be productive [when dressing up] but over here, since it’s just you and if you are dressed up, you feel more productive” she explains.

In addition to how get-ting ready affects one’s work schedule and productivity throughout the day, different outfits also affect moods and how one tends to feel about themselves. Even though people may not see each others’ outfits, it still affects the mood of the person themselves and also plays a role in confidence. For Simran, regardless of whether she is at home or outside, dressing up can im-pact how she feels. “When I dress up, I dress up for my-self and not for others, so it does not affect anything” she states. However, she further describes that despite no one seeing you, the outfits and “the confidence, it makes you feel better about your-self.” For both seniors as well, wearing different outfits and styles makes them feel con-fident not only outside, but at home as well. Shreya ex-plains “When I wear good clothing, I feel confident at school, but even when I’m at home, I still feel comfort-able and homely.” In addi-tion, Ananya describes her

experience of how cloth-ing affected her. “Definitely I think that after I started dressing up in tenth grade, I started to feel a lot more confident because I think dressing up, if it makes you look good, you feel a little bit better about yourself ” she states. Even though no one sees Ananya’s outfits in quar-antine, and she wants to be comfortable, she still tends to “pick out better looking pajamas.” In terms of mood, Shreya shines light on how colors show the mood she is feel-ing. When she feels happy or wants to brighten up, she “choose[s] to wear yel-low because [she] likes yel-low” which in turn reflects her personality. In contrast, Ananya states that “If I’m in a crappy mood, I would wear black because it does not draw much attention to me.” Everyone has different styles and ideas of their ideal clothes for home, whether it be pajamas, or fully decked outfits. Quarantine during this time and online courses does not add much fun to a high school student’s life, but dressing up seems to be something that affects them in terms of productivity and mood.

“The Battle for AHS Sports’s Life” cont.

up a possible harsh reality for the futures of AHS student-athletes and the continuance of their sports seasons for the 2020-2021 school year. “I feel like COVID will probably mess up the sea-son and stop the season,” Jake Navarro (12) predicts. “I don’t think it will go away this school year.” All of these athletes so far are planning on joining track, cross country, or foot-ball, but this doesn’t mean that all athletes will be able to try out for the sport they want to join this year. “[My parents are] pret-ty enthusiastic, as long as we maintain… 6-feet dis-tance,” Raymond Tsui (11) remarked. “I'm looking for-ward to more practices or competitions because [the track team] basically missed out a lot last year.” Other families of student-

athletes at AHS also share these supportive vibes with the upcoming 2020-2021 sports season. Thien Tran is another one of the student-athletes that is planning on competing for her sport in the 2020-2021 sports season. “My sister, specifically, she thinks I should still do [cross country], you know, because she sees how I'm so happy while running, or do-ing cross country. You know, [cross country] definitely changed me for the better,” Thien Tran (11) explained. Although there are fami-lies that are supportive about the continuance of sports during the 2020-2021 school year, this doesn’t take away their concerns about the possibilities of the contrac-tion of COVID-19. “My mom and sister. Yeah… They’ll probably be really scared or something. They’ll probably complain. They’ll probably make me stop going to the practices,” Jake Navarro (12), who still plans on joining the football team, shared. Other families just aren’t as comfortable during the COVID-19 pandemic and don’t share the same level of acceptance to the resump-tion of sports in the 2020-2021 school year. “My mom is just totally against it. She does not want me to [join track this year],” Vijay Murali (10) accept-ingly says despite wanting to join track. “Honestly track and field is probably the highlight of my day, every single day. I don't think I've ever been depressed or not looking forward to track. So I guess I was overall just a much happier kid after track,” Vijay Murali (10). Despite the coronavirus’ effect on sports, American High School’s student-ath-letes still stay hopeful for a full season of sports and are determined to continue to push through the storm, that is the coronavirus. “Ju-nior year I’m definitely gon-na [join the track team]… I cannot miss out on track and field… the next two years I’m going to do track and field, but I think it’s gonna be really fun,” Vijay Murali (10) says.

October 2020 / Eagle Era / Page 5

AP Tests Were Stressful Enough, the Pandemic Made It Worse

Coronavirus and how it has affected AP Students

Krrish AngadalaStaff Writer AP tests can be some of the most stressful tests that a high school student will take in their life: it’s scary, daunting, and horrifying, all wrapped nice and tight into a 3 hour long test. However, this year the coronavirus hit the United States and states were forced to close schools down and turn to remote learning. Unsurprisingly, this made AP tests, which were already confusing and stressful enough, even more complex. For starters, a prob-lem with AP last year was the tests specifically. Due to the lockdown being so sudden, the entire test and the following rubrics were changed up to adapt to the new problems that students faced. With 45 minutes giv-en, students had to complete two free-response questions (for some, only one) to re-ceive a score of 1 through 5. Many students, including high school senior Utkarsh Prasad, were not happy with this change of test structure. Utkarsh Prasad is a senior who has had a great deal of experience with AP classes and tests. In fact, including this school year Prasad has taken eleven classes. When asked about last school year’s AP test for-mat, Prasad (12) responded with: “It’s obviously going to be detrimental [to stu-dents] because the AP tests were completely different so teachers had to reevaluate

their entire style of teach-ing”. Furthermore, due to Col-legeBoard announcing that this school year’s AP tests are going to be taken in per-son and that they are revert-ing back to their original test format, those who have tak-en an AP test last year and are planning to take an AP test this school year won’t have the same experience that they should usually be accustomed to. First time AP test takers expressed concerns on how they might do on AP tests the following year, when the number of AP tests they will take will go up; one of those students was Viraj Vinish . Vinish is a junior this year who took an AP class last school year when school was closed mid semester. “This year when the actu-al AP exam happens, I don’t know how they (AP exams) work and I’m taking two of them, so I have to get used to the format”, answers Vinish (11), “Last year would have been a good entry point be-cause I was only taking one, and I would have under-stood how AP exams work and what to expect.” Last school year was rid-dled with confusion, “The teachers didn’t really know what to do, everyone was confused”, says Vinish (11), “ Everyone didn’t have an idea on what was to happen… Some teachers weren’t as tech friendly… It was just a very confusing time”, Ut-karsh Prasad adds.

Even this year, students still think that remote learn-ing isn’t fully preparing them to take the AP test. Because of problems such as the internet or power in their house, students might miss key details that are nec-essary for class. This could hurt many students who are taking an AP class for the first time. One of these students is Sonia Murugesh (10): a stu-dent athlete and a first time AP class participant As Murgesh (10) men-tions, “I’m sometimes late because of my internet and I end up missing out on infor-mation in class”. The difficulty of the test might pose a challenge due to the unfamiliar circum-stances that students may face, “Considering our cir-cumstances I’m just hoping to pass, I don’t think I could get a 5, considering how things are working out now”, says Viraj Vinish (11). Due to Collegeboard an-nouncing that they are mak-ing AP tests in person, peo-ple are questioning whether a cure for the virus will be able to be put out in the market before the AP test-ing starts. “If we don’t have a vaccine by then, then students will have to take the AP test with masks and face-shields on. I’ve practiced… while wearing a facial (maks and face shield) and it hurts!”, exclaimed Utkarsh Prasad (12). Despite these setbacks,

“Democracy In Our Very Own AHS” cont.

to fights.” She also blamed bias in the media, such as “political ads that you see on Facebook or on various social media where they present different versions of the truth depending on which way you’re leaning.” She finished by saying that President Trump and Can-didate Joe Biden are the “two most qualified people in our country to be the most pow-erful person in the world” yet “couldn’t get through it (the debate) without con-stantly interrupting each other, without throwing in-sults everywhere.” Shikha Adhikari also commented on the candidates and their poor behavior at the first de-bate, stating that “when it’s a debate to express yourself to the citizens on why you’re a good choice at president, it’s clearly not a good show when you’re resorting to such behavior on stage in front of thousands of people who are watching.” Sayeda Imandar talked about the lack of bipartisanship, and how “in the past, people who were very even on opposite sides of the spectrum, still managed to come together and have a civil dialogue.” Much like Zhang, she blames social media and the speed of information, how “ru-mors may have passed from person to person by phone, maybe on a newspaper [back in the day], but now you can move misinforma-tion like this.” She snapped her fingers as she spoke to

signal how fast it was. Having talked at length about the two main parties, I asked how each contribu-tor felt about the two party system and third parties. Shikha stated that she would not vote for a third party, and how “usually my fam-ily and I only support one party.” Amy Zhang, on the other hand, stated her dis-appointment with the two party candidates and how she would be researching a third party “called “People’s movement” which sup-ports ideas brought by the people instead of political parties that are funded by major corporations.” Syeda Imandar promoted “ranked-choice voting” because she feels it could cause “ more party participation.” She feels it could help those who “are disillusioned with both party systems because of money in politics and lobby-ists and the fact that it costs money to run for election/office.” I asked a final question on which candidates each contributor liked the most. Amy Zhang cited Senator Bernie Sanders “because he supports a lot of the things I support, which is Medicare for all, Green New Deal, all of that.” Elaborating on Medicare for all, she states that “Americans’ health in-surance is one of the most expensive costs. Most Amer-icans can’t afford an acci-dent, a ride to the hospital or any of that. The U.S. is the richest country in the world, but we don’t have enough money to support all this.” Shika Adhikari stated that current candidate Joe Biden was her favorite because “he talked about a more pro-gressive approach- helping with jobs, paying attention to the environment, and it’s beneficial towards many people.” Syeda Imanadar did not endorse or support any particular candidate, but concluded with “ I’m just going to say, one more thing is, if you blindly fol-low a party platform or you blindly follow a leader, that’s almost cult-like. What the United States affords you to do is the ability to think for yourself. And that’s a very precious right.”

Viraj Vinish (11) is working on his homework for AP Chemistry while listening to music. Vinish hopes to do well on this assignment

so that he can be better prepared for the AP test.

there are some positives that have come with remote learning AP tests. Viraj Vin-ish (11) states, “Things have definitely improved [from last year] and teachers now understand how to work with zoom and sending up-dates via schoolloop”. Sonia Murugesh (10) adds on to this by stating, “So far my teacher has been giving me all the necessary resources, and we are tested on what we are learning”. But this overall situation can be summed up in the words of Utkarsh Prasad (12), “I don’t really think that anyone could do any-thing right or wrong in this situation.”

October 2020 / Eagle Era / Page 6

The Rise of Art The Rise of Art How art and mental health tie together in times of need

Historically, art has been used to express human emo-tions, starting way back with prehistoric cave art made with blood or fruit juice to stain the stone walls. In modern times, humans have created many different me-diums to express themselves including painting, draw-ing, as well as performing arts such as dance. With the global pandemic, people are using art more than ever to express themselves during this time of isolation. Robbie Yue (10), a soph-omore at American High School who has been draw-ing digitally for years, talks about what drew them into art. “I think it looks cool. It just feels cool to create some-thing, and I'm like ’Whoa I did that’ for then also seeing other people's art, and be like, ‘Whoa, people can do that,’” stated Yue. This sort of mentality also affected their art during quarantine. “It's just the style but, I've been wanting to put more thought into what I am drawing to have, like, more meaning behind it. Since quarantine started, I’ll get to do that,” explained Robbie Yue (10). However, someone like Jalen Reyes, a sophomore in dance and colorguard, might have a different expe-rience. “[Quarantine] has giv-en me more time to think about [colorguard] and re-flect on how well I've done in it, because during quar-antine, I did absolutely no flag or rifle equipment what-soever. The first time we got equipment was the first time I had touched it in months, because I was so scared that when we came back, will I even remember anything? And then when we really started doing like the zoom breakout rooms, it kind of just came back t o me like muscle memory. I guess it's just the fear of losing my skills. What happens, for ex-ample, when you dance you

Bee Chaudhary Staff Writer

have all people understand that like when you don't dance for a long time, you lose [technique]. You get out of shape, and I thought guard would be the same, but it's not, it's all muscle memory, with your practice and your fundamentals.” Jalen Reyes (10) responded when asked about her per-sonal experience with guard and dance during quaran-tine. Jalen also is in Art 2 at American, but doesn’t use it as much to express herself. “It's like expressing emo-tions and feelings through live art, like physically, peo-ple are physically watching you, versus, like in a draw-ing people kind of can just see it as kind of like a stamp. On paper, it's always there and you can stare at it for a long time and always find new things about it but what I like about performing arts is like it's an in-the-moment type of emotion and feel-ing that you're showing and presenting.” Jalen Reyes (10) expressed Of course, someone like an art teacher might have a different opinion. “It's like any relationship in your life, so some of my paintings and I had a beauti-ful time together. And it just flowed and everything was perfect. Some paintings, it was a struggle and we had to work through it, and it was a journey. And, you know, I always look at them and I see the struggle that hap-pens so it really, you know, it might sound really strange but it is different for each, each piece.” Ms. Olson (Art Teacher) explained when describing her personal art. However, her regular ex-perience with painting was only slightly affected by the pandemic. “I travel a lot and we had to cancel a bunch of trips that I had planned and I was very sad about that. But because I was trapped here, I got a lot more art done and I generally do, because there was nothing else to do. As far as how the quaran-tine impacted my artwork,

it didn't really [impact her art]. I just did more of it so I was much more pro-lific. Tragically, since school started, I haven't painted at all because distance learning is a 24/7 situation. Yeah, but surely I'll get into the rhythm and get some time for myself sometime soon.” Ms. Olsen further elaborated. She then delved further into her personal art. “I don't use colored pen-cils for my art. I don't do pencil drawings, I don't do still life drawings, I'm an oil painter, and there's a very different style in my own work than what I show [stu-dents] because it's different. [Students] need to learn all the different skills, and I'm trying to show content and the things that I love, so it's just very different, and part of it is just the medium. So, yes, very different. So when I do a demo for [students] I feel like okay that's done, but when I'm doing my own painting, I don't notice time passing. It's like, you just get into this state of flow where you're just painting, and sometimes everything just clicks. And it's a really lovely place to be in. Sometimes it doesn't click and then you have this sort of discussion between you and the paint-ing and what you want from it and what it wants to be. And it's kind of a back and forth situation which is real-ly interesting, but you don't get that with a demo, be-cause that's really just skills that I'm trying to teach [stu-dents].” Ms. Olson elabo-rated when asked about her classes. Art is a generally good way to express emotions and feelings. For most people, it does take time to figure out what kind of art they can ex-press themselves through, as not every type of art is the same or even remotely simi-lar in cases of performing arts. Having art as an outlet is also important, as human emotions can get built up and it’s good to “let the emo-tions out” so to speak. Over-all, art is pretty good for you.

ful and I wasn’t able to time manage that well. Being able to have an extra month now,

“The Spirit Week of To-day” cont.

it’s allowing us to go back over where we sort of went wrong with the original deadline, so we’re trying to be more proactive and keep-ing up with each other, and also our own personal lives and schoolwork”. Amber Schomoyer, the Senior Spirit Week Anima-tor, adds, “Hallelujah. I was walking the dog at work, and I felt my phone notifica-tion go off and I picked it up and I was like ‘is somebody quitting on Spirit Week be-cause of the timeline’ and I picked it up and it was like “hey guys, we got an exten-sion”, and I sighed in relief and I turned to the dog and I was like ‘oh my gosh, Por-ter, you’re never gonna be-lieve what happened’. I’m so grateful we have a student council that’s so understand-ing and flexible. You know, I think we could’ve gotten it done by October 21st, but… our mental health would’ve struggled. I think people were just so busy freaking out over how they're gonna manage college apps AND the project in such a short amount of time, so I think giving this extension would kinda help everybody get things under control”. On a lighter note, the opinions for this extension was positive, with hopes that they are now able to produce their best quality work. “I had a very busy weekend so it gave me a little more time to finalize my draw-ings so I’m personally happy about [the extension].” says Roman Young (9). Another artist, Kaitlyn Shi (12), inputs, “I think [progress] has been good so far, especially now that the deadline has been extend-ed. Because it wasn’t before and it felt like everyone was rushing and that we might even not have a full [anima-tion] finished and it would have to be short. But i think that now we’re going at a good pace and we could ac-tually make something that is like a completed project, a completed product.” Through and through, many challenges were thrown at the spirit week participants, but they have proven that they can handle the hardships of a virtual

spirit week. With that said, morale is high amongst the classes, and everyone is hopeful for the final results. “I’m excited to see what the whole storyboard looks like, Roman says, I’m ex-cited to see everything spirit week has to offer, and I want to see how it turns out de-spite covid.” In an unprecedented situ-ation like this, Spirit Week members have done their best with the cards they’ve dealt to try to bring you a memorable week despite COVID-19. Squid Nguyen (12), a skit animator, shares some fi-nal thoughts on the project, “I hope that people actu-ally watch it, like sit through and just observe what we’ve been working hard to make throughout all our school-work and stuff because ev-eryone is taking time out of their lives to do it. I just hope that people appreciate it.” Overall, it’s a statement in itself that despite the limita-tions of virtual schooling, we are still able to find creative ways to improvise, adapt, and overcome. With this new situation comes new ideas, and possibly more creative Spirit Weeks in the future, which is exciting to many, including Catherine Marzan (9), a freshmen mu-sician. “I’m excited to see what’s in store for the future, and what they’re gonna do next year, and the year after that.”

cause my friend bought it, so we're doing a co-op game where multiple people work on a single farm,” Shieh il-lustrates. “When I'm playing it’s easy to temporarily for-get about current problems I’d otherwise be stressing over.” Shieh continues. However, as much as all these games may be differ-ent they all have one thing in common. They bring a sense of comfort during these un-predictable times. They pro-vide an escape from reality; an escape from the stress of homework, the worry from the coronavirus, and the concern for the upcoming election.

“Guide to Gaming: Quarantine Edition”

cont.

October 2020 / Eagle Era / Page 7

Online Socializing The transition from digital to real life

The start of Among us, where you wait in the lobby of a spaceship with your friends, or even strangers if the lobby is public

Mamata ElangovanStaff Writer Humans seek social inter-action. During the pandem-ic however, we have been completely barred from do-ing activities physically with one another. To make up for the lack of physical interac-tion, we have turned to on-line gaming and socializing. Whether it be general PvP games or world exploration, there lies the underlying fac-tor of communicating with others. Current guidelines set by quarantine require for people to wear face masks and maintain a distance of six feet when outside. This can definitely get in the way of socialization. What better

way to avoid problems like these rather than playing in a virtual world. Minecraft, Roblox, Fall Guys, Animal Crossing, the list goes on and on. Quarantine has caused changes to social life. For some, it is more noticeable than others. In the case of Caden Kwon (10), he stated “In most senses, I think the hardest thing for me just has been not being able to be present with certain friends, like my church group, be-cause it really requires that we be in a really close and intimate setting. It's really not the same as most of my other friends, of course I miss them, but that's more

bearable. If we get to like talk over messenger or over the phone.” For some, not much has changed, as Ayush Madhukar (12) says “I defi-nitely can meet with them, not often face to face or in person, and when we do, we need to follow guidelines. And, we don't go into each other's houses anymore, we use more public spaces. And in general just a lot more on-line mediums, such as more calling and texting.” One such app that has taken the place of inter-acting with one another is Among Us. A simple game resembling Mafia developed by InnerSloth. According to Kiarra Bautista (9), “It’s been trending lately, Among Us.

It's been roaring out through everything basically and Minecraft as well but mostly among us.” A game of team-work, betrayal, and strategy, Among Us has been strange-ly popular with people at American. Before quarantine, when we were all still attending school in person, if the need arose to talk to someone or enjoy a few moments chat-ting, all that would be re-quired would be to get up and find them. It is a little bit more complicated nowa-days. For instance, Sumha Lakhani (11) mentioned that “we have group chats. So we'll set it up beforehand, maybe like a day or two in advance, because we are all busy with school and stuff.” Some people like to have an organized schedule, oth-ers are a lot more sponta-neous. When prompted the same question, Madhukar answered that “Someone normally just sets up a game and then more people join. It’s not really anything that we plan out.” But like always, there are instances when no matter how little or how in-depth your planning is, it is just not possible to meet up with one another. Kwon, for in-stance, recalls that “I try to schedule ahead of time like, ‘Hey. I'm free these days if you want to do something with me, we can work some-

thing out.’ But the problem is most of my friends aren't like that. They'll just text in a DM ‘Okay. Playing Among Us,” and conveniently, it's whenever I have a tutoring session to do or I'm work-ing on a project or recording something.” Finally, there is the issue of what platform to use while talking. With many options out there, it is all a matter of fact to finding the one that best suits you. An example being, Madhukar prefers using Discord or Google Hangouts while Lakhani normally uses Zoom. They all have their ups and downs, while Discord is free to use in general, Zoom can only be used in groups for long periods of time if you ei-ther use your school account or own a premium one. Sometimes, depending on the friend group, you may choose to change which app you are using at the moment, for Lakhani “If it's with my older brother's friends, they have Discord. So I use it. With my own friends, we normally use zoom.” In general, there are lots of ways to interact with people even with quarantine regula-tions in place. It is all a mat-ter of finding what best suits your flow and experiment-ing with different apps until we can get a chance to meet up again in real life.

Around June and July, Alokozai created another GoFundMe for the Muslim-observed holiday, Ramadan. It focuses on a sense of com-munity through fasting and prayer. Many Muslims in Afghanistan did not have food or water that would al-low them to live through the fasting portion of Ramadan. Alokozai created the fund-raiser to send food and water to families who were suffer-ing from starvation so they would be able to observe the important religious holiday.

Her current fundraiser is asking for donations to help build a girls’ school in Af-ghanistan. Young children living in Afghan villages, like the one Alokozai’s father grew up in, “don’t have classrooms like we do. They barely have a room, they’re outside near bricks studying . . . With the campaign, we want to spread access to education.” The GoFundMe for the girls’ school fund has raised over $1.3k as of October 19, and the link to donate can be

found here: https://www.gofundme.com/f/building-school-in-afghan-village. All three students advo-cating for countries outside of the United States had one common trait between them—the desire to educate others on issues students might not know about. Lee’s words of advice are on chari-ties: “I feel like there’s so many charities out there all dedi-cated to so many different purposes so if there’s any-thing you want to help out with, make sure you do your

research.” Research was a large part of all three’s campaigns for change. Many activists aside from AHS students advocate for people to educate them-selves above anything else. In regards to where people get their information, Mu-radyan wants people to know that people should “Scrutinize what you think is right. Reflect on what you have been taught, check your sources and who is writing the things you are reading, and try to be the best person you can be.”

The largest source of help, and what students can do at home, is to simply learn and be aware of issues around the world, make sure the in-formation they are getting are from reputable sources, and see what they can do in their community. And lastly, from Alokozai, “Nobody is really aware of those problems going around. I think it’s impor-tant to be aware of those problems internationally. We’re just trying to help the world a little.”

“Students’ Campaign for Worldwide Change” cont.

EAGLE ERA

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Krrish AngadalaLisa Yeung

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October 2020 / Eagle Era / Page 8